PM Orban: We Refuse to Be Dispensable Pawns on the Imperial Chessboard + Video

Hungary's prime minister addressed the crowds gathered to commemorate the Day of National Cohesion.

Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban (Photo: MTI/Szilard Koszticsak)

"In the looming shadow of another war, we can safely say that history concentrates here in Geszt today", Viktor Orban said in his speech commemorating the Day of National Cohesion at the ceremonial opening of the renovated Tisza Castle in Geszt. The prime minister said that the nation has not chosen resignation, but to fight and to survive. "The nation is also capable of expressing its boundless will to live, capacity for solidarity, and of paying tribute to the family that has given it so much. We repay to this great family the indebtedness of the Hungarian nation by caring for their former home and the family's resting place in a dignified manner," he added.

The Tisza family had fought against the Turks, and the last successful period of the Kingdom of Hungary is inseparably tied to them. The PM recalled that Istvan Tisza's death also marked the painful end of a historical era. "One hundred and four years ago we were handed a diktat. The best of Hungarian industry and farmland was lost, and our cultural values ended up outside of the newly imposed borders. 

A true Hungarian is someone for whom the national wounds inflicted by the Treaty of Trianon are the most painful,

The Trianon diktat was intended to wipe out our nation, they wanted to bury us, the PM stated.

"The caring, good masters of the homeland were killed or forced to flee. At the darkest hour, our country was handed over to people about whom even a hundred years on it is still difficult to decide whether it was their ill intent or their incompetence that was the greater blow for the country," Mr Orban said.

The losses of the country a hundred years ago were brought upon us by a war that the then Prime Minister Istvan Tisza vehemently opposed. At the time the country had no option of staying out of the war. Back then, too, warmongers were hanging from the rafters in Vienna. All the responsible and rational thoughts for the future of the nation were in vain: Hungary was forced to march into war.

Had we had the strength, the crown would have been preserved and the nation would have suffered less,

the PM noted, adding that not only the defeated lost in the war, so did the victors. The diktats that ended the war did not bring peace, but instead brought new devastation to the Carpathian Basin. New countries were created and renewed ethnic tensions flared up with far more animosity than in the former monarchy. The artificially cobbled-together state formations disintegrated at the first opportunity, he recalled. 

As gloomy as the clouds over Central Europe are today, there is a glimmer of hope around the edges, according to Hungary's PM. We have now reached the point where the peoples of the Carpathian Basin finally want to be free and sovereign. "110 years ago, the peoples of the Carpathian Basin fought the Hungarians for their sovereignty. The war was fought by the Czechs, the Romanians, the Serbs and the Slovaks."

Today, the peoples living in this part of the world are making it clear to the great powers: we don't want war, 

he said. Peoples of the Carpathian Basin do not want to be dispensable pawns on the imperial chessboard, vassals that can be sent to war, said.  All this is stated the loudest by the Hungarians,  the members of the largest community in the Carpathian Basin, the prime minister emphasized.

In PM Orban's view, by now it has also become clear that the sovereignty of the peoples of Central Europe can be best defended not against the Hungarians, but in cooperation with the Hungarians. Therefore, "on the Day of National Cohesion not only we Hungarians must cling to each other, but the peoples of the Carpathian Basin", he stressed.

We need not only cohesion but also togetherness, he said. We must dream of a glorious future, he said, adding that those who propose that we should dare to be small commit a sin against the community of Hungarians, he stated. 

We Hungarians must urge cooperation and solidarity time and time again, and we must also rejoice in the successes of our neighbors,

the prime minister emphasized.

"Today, Central Europe is facing the same threat as it did 110 years ago. Yet another imperial interest wants to plunge us into war," Viktor Orban underlined. He highlighted that

war is always the outcome of human decisions, and today we must endeavor to accomplish what former Prime Minister Istvan Tisza could not manage to: prevent Hungary’s involvement in another European war.

"We elect the government, we have the powers, we Hungarians decide our own fate. We decide in the widest possible public, in national and European elections. Now we can do what we could not do 110 years ago.

the entire Hungarian community can say no to war in a clear, democratic framework,

the prime minister stated, adding that Hungary’s national government and the great majority and strength behind it do not facelift but restore, meaning we refurbish, rebuild, and reconstruct. We want to set right the dislocated time, we want to patch up the tear that has developed in the fabric of Hungarian time. 

"We take revenge on communism by stepping over it, by connecting the Hungary before the German and Soviet occupations with today’s Hungary. This is the original and profoundest meaning of the regime change," he said. Today's commemoration is an important and meaningful landmark in this mission, because those who come here will understand precisely what our generation's slogan means:

no match is over until we win.

Prime Minister Viktor Orban delivered his speech at the inauguration ceremony of the renovated Tisza Castle in Geszt (south-eastern-Hungary) on June 4, the Day of National Unity.

The prime minister  shared a photo of the venue on social media.

The inauguration of a national memorial at the home of one-time Prime Ministers Kalman Tisza and Istvan Tisza was announced by Construction and Transport Minister Janos Lazar on social media.

Cover photo: Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban (Photo: MTI/Szilard Koszticsak)